PH
There are literary works where letters aren't simply meant to be read from left to right.
The placement of letters, fragments of words, symbols, and empty spaces can become part of the composition.
One experimental movement even treated individual letters as visual forms, sometimes separating them from their normal linguistic meanings.
The result can look more like abstract art than conventional writing.
Yet the work still belongs to the history of poetry and literature.
This creates an unusual middle ground where reading and looking become almost the same activity.
You aren't simply asking, “What does this say?”
You're also asking, “What am I looking at?”
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art